The invention relates to a cassette tape recorder, and more particularly, to a small size tape recorder having a single lever to provide a switching between stop, record, playback and rewind modes.
A tape recorder operated with a single lever is frequently manufactured as a pocket size or handy size recorder which is adapted to receive a miniature tape cassette, sometimes called as "Dictaphone type," measuring 56 mm in lateral depth, 33 mm in depth and 7.5 mm in thickness. Because such recorder is held by one hand and its lever operated with the thumb of the hand in use, it is essential that it has a reduced overall weight and provides a smooth lever operation. In the conventional construction of recorders of this type, the single operation lever has associated therewith a number of auxiliary levers and/or links which control a tape drive unit, the positioning of a main head and an erase head and switches including record/playback changeover switch, and this resulted in a drag presented in shifting the operation lever. In addition, the increased number of parts required resulted in an increased cost in the manufacture and assembly and also added to the weight of the recorder.